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As a librarian at a provincial northern university the poet Philip Larkin was as far from the beating heart of literary London as it is possible to imagine.

In recent years he was accused of both casual sexism and racist views following the publication of his letters.

But next Friday, 31 years after his death at the age of 63, he will be welcomed into the bosom of Britain’s cultural establishment with a place in Poets Corner.

A ledger stone in his name will be placed alongside such literary icons as Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and most recently Ted Hughes.

The Dean of Westminster Abbey, Very Reverend Dr John Hall, took the decision that it was “the right time” to honour Larkin and that the greatness of his poetry outweighs any objects about his opinions on race and women.

A spokesman for Westminster Abbey told The Daily Telegraph: “The Dean feels now is the right time to memorialise Larkin. Whatever rows have taken place about his view the bigger picture is his poetry and what shines through is that he’s one of our greatest poets and should be recognised a such.”

Philip Larkin at Hull University in 1966, where he was the head librarianCredit:
John Hedgecoe/Topfoto

Larkin, who was born in Coventry, became a librarian after graduating from Oxford with a first in English Language and Literature.

He produced the greatest part of his work while at Hull and while he was initially acclaimed for his dour, even glum vision of northern life many turned against him following the posthumous publication of his letters in 1992.

These showed him to be, in the words of the writer and academic Lisa Jardine, a "casual, habitual racist, and an easy misogynist".

But his rehabilitation began in the years that followed and in 2003 he was named in a Poetry Book Society survey as Britain's best-loved poet of the previous 50 years.

The Philip Larkin Society has long campaigned for him to be memorialised at Poet’s Corner.

Professor Edwin Dawes, a close friend of Larkin’s at Hull university and chairman of the society, said: “I feared this would not happen following the row over his letters and the claims of misogyny and racism and all the rest.

“But everything changes in time and it has been recognised that he is a great poet worthy of inclusion. Philip would be delighted.”

Indeed Larkin himself was surprisingly confident of his place among the pantheon of great writers.

After attending the memorial service for the poet laureate Sir John Betjeman at Westminster Abbey in June 1984, Parkin wrote to his mother predicting that he too would see himself acclaimed as one of the greats.

“Poets Corner is pretty crowded,” he wrote to her on a postcard home. “But I think there will be a space for me.”

Dr Hall, who will conduct the ceremony, says Larkin would have been pleased with the way things turned out.

“In his letter home after John Betjeman’s service he expressed the feeling that he would eventually come to be regarded as part of the 20th century poetic establishment. It was something he clearly hoped himself,” Dr Hall told the Telegraph.

“And while it is the Dean of Westminster Abbey who makes the decision as to who should be commemorated at Poet’s Corner - whether the cultural establishment approves or not - I get the feeling in Larkin’s case that they do.”

While the Anglican hierarchy may be ready to honour the poet, there is no disguising the fact that Larkin - who was also the Daily Telegraph’s jazz critic from 1961 to 1971 - kept himself at arm’s length from the church.

Indeed in a number of poems, chiefly in Church Going, he questions the relevance of the institution and whether it has a future in modern Britain.

But Dr Hall said that even if Larkin did not recognise himself as one of their own, the institution was duty bound to honour those it felt used the talents bestowed on them by God for the benefit of humanity.

He said: “Larkin himself had no strong faith, if any at all, but in Church Going and also in An Arundel Tomb, he’s thinking about the significance of the church. There’s a sort of nostalgia there for faith and a sense that if the church disappears we will have lost something very important.

“Larkin’s engagement with this question is very important and it’s fitting that he’ll take his place at the heart of our church.”